Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
On Sunday morning we had a cooking lesson at Phon cafe, a small place on the riverfront. It was a lot of fun and a very memorable experience. We arrived to find a table laid out with all the fresh ingredients. The cook demonstrated the techniques than left us to prepare the food. We first made a Vietnamese salad of green papaya, carrot, prawns, pork, and salad leaves. Making the dressing was interesting as it showed us the basic ingredients (such as fish sauce, oyster sauce, and dried pork powder) that give the distinctive vietnamese taste to the food we had been eating in Vietnam.
We also made the local speciality of Hoi An spring rolls, but I made a bit of a mess of trying to roll up the delicate rice paper! My favourite part of the menu was the grilled fish wrapped in banana leaf. We each got given a big juicy fillet of fresh mackeral, coated it in a saffron and spice paste, then wrapped it up in banana leaf and cooked it on the BBQ- amazing!! After preparing and cooking all the dishes, we sat down to eat what we had made- everything tasted absolutely delicious (if a little spicy!)
On the way back to the hotel we wandered through the market, and I was accosted by a lady who wanted me marry her son!! She tried to take me to her house to meet him, but I managed to make a quick escape!
In the late afternoon we headed to Hoi An beach to chill before a night out in town. The beach was great, although there were lots of people trying to sell us stuff while we were sunbathing, which was very annoying. They don't take no for an answer; one lady was so persistent she even took a seat at the end my towel for almost 5 minutes. The female sellers are a funny sight on the beach as they completely cover their skin in order to keep it white- they wear head scarves, face mask, gloves, socks etc, I don't know how they handle the heat.
I had a great night out- we started at Dive bar for some drinks, and moved on to Why not bar for some dancing (on the pool table!!) We meet some lovely people including a great Canadian guy called Dave.
The morning after we were all feeling a little worse for wear so we spent the day chilling by the pool. In the evening we took a sleeper bus to Nha trang; it was a 12 hour journey and the bumpiest of my life! I felt like I was about to bounce straight out of my bed the whole time, and in fact I actually lifted up off the bed several times, bashing my head on the ceiling!
- comments